MUMBAI: BBC Vision director George Entwistle has unveiled a reorganisation of BBC Vision and rights and business affairs that will stimulate new ways of working and help free-up significantly increased content spend.

Completing BBC Vision?s original ambition to unify all parts of the business, the new structures and new ways of working aims to benefit the audience by maximising on-screen spend, while reducing internal costs.

In the new business core, activity will be structured around three new genres: Knowledge and Daytime; Comedy and Entertainment; and Drama, Film & Acquisitions. Smaller central business teams will be retained in Vision and Rights and Business Affairs to ensure the genres are working to the same high standards.

Changes within the business already announced under DQF, and enhanced by Vision?s reorganisation, will free up ?27million for reinvestment in 2013/14. Simplifying the business should also ensure improved commissioning and business effectiveness for all suppliers, both in-house and independent.

The new genre-based working model will also allow better alignment with the emerging structures of BBC UK Network Production and will facilitate the creation and operation of genre boards, which will be used to align editorial and commercial strategy across BBC public service, BBC Worldwide and all other commercial partners.

As part of the restructure, three new senior Controller of Business roles will be created. Reporting to Bal Samra, each will lead on business affairs for one of the three main genre groups and will be responsible for all the key business functions within their genre. The Controllers of Business will work in new leadership teams alongside the Commissioning and Production Genre Controllers in each of the key genre groups.

BBC Vision director George Entwistle said, ?The key to the creative future of the BBC is to ensure good people and good money spend less time tied up in process and more time creating the very highest quality television programmes and multiplatform output. The hard choices we?ve already made through DQF, plus the radical new ways of working implicit in this reorganization, will help simplify what we do ? freeing people and money to concentrate on serving our audiences."

BBC Vision Productions director of vision operations and director of right and business affairs Bal Samra and chief creative office Pat Younge have worked with George Entwistle to help shape the future structure of the division.

Samra will continue to be responsible for all Vision Operations and Rights and Business Affairs, while taking full responsibility for the production management teams across the genres. He will also sponsor the changes required to create the new genre business teams and central roles.

Younge?s new role will see him freed up from operational obligations to focus on the creative leadership of all network TV production in Drama, Factual, Entertainment and Comedy.

Pat will continue to line manage the key production controllers and editorial staff in Vision?s in-house production teams, and will be responsible for driving creative standards and innovation in content creation for all platforms.

Vision?s new structure will be implemented in phases, with changes complete by 2013. The recruitment process for the new Controller of Business posts will start immediately, with appointments due in the summer.

MUMBAI: ?Appropriate Adult?, an ITV miniseries about a serial killer Fred West, won three acting awards at the Bafta TV awards in the UK.

Dominic West, Emily Watson and Monica Dolan won for their roles in the show. West beat out stiff competition that included the star of ?Sherlock? Benedict Cumberbatch.

Andrew Scott won the award for supporting actor in ?Sherlock? as the Elad character?s nemesis Moriarty. ITV2?s show ?Celebrity Juice? won the YouTube audience award.

The award for best drama show went to BBC?s ?The Fades?. The award for comedy programme went to BBC?s ?Stewart Lee?s Comedy Vehicle? while its sitcom ?Mrs Brown?s Boys? won in that category. Its factual series ?Our War ? also triumphed.

Danish thriller ?Borgen? won for best international TV show. Rolf Harris got the Fellowship Award.

MUMBAI: The BBC has retained free-to-air highlights of the Premier League in the United Kingdom until the end of the 2015/16 season.

With a bid of ?179.7m the BBC has retained their highlights package, including the traditional Saturday evening Match of the Day programme, the Sunday morning repeat, MotD2 on Sunday evenings and other evenings when Premier League fixtures justify a show.

Match of the Day and MotD2 will also be available on the BBC?s iPlayer from midnight on Mondays.

Premier League CEO Richard Scudamore said: "The free-to-air highlights are extremely important to the broadcast reach of the Premier League; allowing the competition and our clubs to be seen by the maximum possible number of fans across the country.The BBC has done a fantastic job for fans of Premier League clubs by providing quality coverage and analysis across their programmes. We are very pleased to be continuing our partnership with them."

Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker added: "It is wonderful news that we have MotD for another three years. It is a flagship programme and it shows how much the BBC values sport and the importance of football."

The new contract will see MOTD celebrate its 50th birthday.

BBC Director of Sport Barbara Slater said: "With such an amazing season and thrilling finale, Premier League football has never been more exciting and dramatic. We?re absolutely delighted that the TV highlights will continue to be available to licence fee payers. We?ve seen audiences for MOTD grow in recent years and the programme remains one of the BBC?s best loved and most iconic brands."

MUMBAI: UK pubcaster The BBC?s channel BBC One controller Danny Cohen and BBC controller, entertainment commissioning Mark Linsey have commissioned Initial (an Endemol company), to produce ?Secret Service?, a new six-part comedy series for Saturday evenings on BBC One.

The ?Secret Service? are a team of highly trained operatives (actors and comedians) who are looking for people who need to be pranked, wound up, or tricked into believing something utterly ridiculous while being secretly filmed.

In this hidden camera show, Richard and his elite Secret Service team are here to help the people of Britain. If you have a mission for them, and it needs to be kept secret from someone (and then broadcast to the nation) they are the team for you.

Linsey said, ?Richard has proved to be an enormous treat for the Saturday night audience with his own unique brand of humour, and I think the viewers are going to enjoy his Secret Service as much as they have Total Wipeout."

Initial creative director Nick Samwell-Smith said, "Following on from the great fun we?ve had with ?Total Wipeout?, we?re delighted to be working with Richard Hammond again on this exciting new hidden camera show, which will make for great family viewing on Saturday nights.?

MUMBAI: The unions at BBC - Bectu, the NUJ and Unite - have confirmed that a national dispute over pay and conditions which threatened action over the Jubilee weekend has been settled.

The BBC?s one per cent pay offer for 2012-13 (subject to a minimum increase of ?400) remains derisory, say the unions, but talks with senior management have secured concessions on conditions which will provide valuable protections during the current licence fee period.

A joint statement notes that while it is accepted that, as in many organisations, cuts in funding will have an impact on staff, it is believed by both the joint unions and management that a continuous pattern of annual settlements which represent a real cut in pay are neither desirable nor sustainable. A great deal is expected from people in the BBC and whilst no one is immune from the impact of the reduced funding, employees must be paid fairly.

Ensuring that people are rewarded fairly for the remainder of the licence fee period will be dependent on a variety of factors, some of which are unknown at this time: the impact of the economy on household (and Licence Fee) growth, inflation levels, commercial income, the achievement of identified savings, potential risks around the pension deficits, etc. Both management and unions will endeavour to ensure that a fair level of remuneration is integral to the BBC?s future plans.

Both sides have accepted that there will be no movement from the current offer of one per cent this year, but the BBC is committed to ensuring that pay settlements during this licence fee period go some way to reflect the cost of living, as far as these factors allow.

In addition to this joint undertaking, management and the joint unions have agreed to the following key principles, for the duration of the Licence Fee period as a minimum, in a joint effort to work through the challenges together:

Approach to pay negotiations

- Both management and unions remain committed to constructive national pay bargaining

- The annual pay settlement will continue to be a standard pan-BBC adjustment determined by collective bargaining with the joint unions

- Will not move to regional/divisional pay bargaining

- The annual pay increase will remain a collectively negotiated across the board increase - this standard increase will not be performance related for graded staff

The parties have a joint commitment to work co-operatively and constructively in developing new pay and grading framework and proposed changes to terms and conditions. Following last years? consultation, work continues in an effort to find the best way of recognising unpredictable and unsociable working patterns. Whatever the end result, there will be no imposed reduction
in current UPA and Flexibility allowance rates for existing recipients

Performance Ratings

- Both management and unions believe in helping staff develop through an effective appraisal system
- While many staff are comfortable with the way in which the performance rating system works, some are not and, therefore, performance ratings will continue to be voluntary (both verbal and
written) for the next two years after which time the position will be reviewed

Individuals will continue to have the opportunity to see finalised appraisal forms prior to adding comments and to receive a copy

Redeployment

- Both management and unions remain committed to retaining as many of our great people as we can during this difficult period. The BBC?s position is that some compulsory redundancies may be unavoidable. Whilst progress has been made in the way the BBC re-deploys staff at risk and the new approach is meeting with some success, both sides believe that they can continue to improve and have therefore agreed to tighten up the processes still further

- The BBC policy of ?Looking inside the BBC first? will be amended so that managers must look in the redeployment database first for suitably qualified candidates prior to posting an ad internally
(excluding posts on the agreed exceptions list). If there are no suitable candidates, the unions will be notified of all vacancies then advertised internally which will run for a minimum of seven days.

In the event there are no suitable internal candidates following this process, managers can then advertise externally which will run for a minimum of seven days prior to any employment offers being made

- The maximum continuous engagement for casual staff should be three months; the joint unions to raise examples where they believe this is not the case which will be investigated centrally

MUMBAI: Infotainment channel History TV18 and news channel CNN IBN have announced the judges for the initiative ?The Greatest Indian?.

The show format is based on a ground breaking series featured on BBC called ?The Greatest Briton?. The initiative will look to answer the question of who the greatest Indian is and what does it take to be called ?Great?? The parties had formally announced the initiative in February.

The first phase of initiative comprises a jury selecting some of the Greatest Indians who have shaped the nation. The jury comprises personalities like N. Ram (former Editor-In-Chief of The Hindu), Vinod Mehta (Editor-in-Chief of Outlook), Soli Sorabjee (Former Attorney General of India), Sharmila Tagore (Bollywood actress and former Chairperson of the Censor Board of India), Harsha Bhogle (sports) and Chetan Bhagat (author).

The jury would be entrusted the task of limiting the poll list to 50 Great Indians out of a preeminent list of such 100 super achievers. The list of 50 will then be released for a nationwide poll curtain raiser on 4 July by CNN IBN Editor in Chief Rajdeep Sardesai.